How We Took a Road Trip With a Three Year Old (Toddler Travel Tips)

We just took our first road trip with a young kiddo and I’d be lying if I said I had any chill about it. Our three-year old daughter doesn’t tolerate being in the car for very long on a good day, so I truly expected the worst when we planned to take our first family road trip this fall. To make matters worse, I tend to be an anxious traveller to begin with and so the thought of being stuck in a car for hours with a disgruntled toddler was giving me some serious stress before our departure date.

Which is why I took the time to do some research. Surely I wasn’t the only parent with these concerns. What I found in my research was a trove of resources that included useful travel tips and ideas for age-appropriate car activities. After taking some of those ideas and putting them to the test, I decided I’d write my own post to share my insights from our experience. Our trip ended up going a lot better than I anticipated and I’m so grateful that I took the time to properly prepare for that outcome.

Heading out on a road trip with a little one? Here’s what I’d recommend you do:

01. Prep your child.

I wanted to make sure that our daughter, even though she is young, had reasonable expectations about what our trip would be like. For a couple weeks leading up to it, we pretty intentionally talked to her about everything we were planning to do, including spending lots of time in the car. I specifically told her that we would be travelling in the car for a while, but that we would take bathroom breaks and have snacks to eat and activities to do. I also told her what we planned to do at various stops so she realized that even though the car portion could be unpleasant, we had lots of fun activities to look forward to in our travels.

I think this small effort went a long way when it came time to travel. She knew what to expect and didn’t experience any disappointment or confusion.

02. Prep your car.

I cannot overstate how important this proved to be. A couple of days before our trip, I took an hour or two to clean our car and get it organized with all the things I anticipated we would need. I’m glad I went to the effort because I was able to empty out anything we wouldn’t need and also had it fresh in my mind where everything was stored in case a situation came up on our trip. Here’s some of the things I did and/or considered:

• Prepared my daughter’s area, including the car activities I planned for her and easy access to water and snacks.

• Packed a stand alone potty with some doggy disposal bags, just in case we weren’t able to find a reasonable stopping area for last minute bathroom breaks. We didn’t end up using it, but I’m glad we at least had the option.

• Prepared a snack box and cooler with all our snacks easily accessible to the passenger to distribute.

• Replenished the tissues, hand sanitizer, and bleach wipes in the main console.

• Made sure we had at least one car phone charger accessible for GPS navigation and wrote out a list of the various addresses we were going to on our trip so we could easily type them in.

• Stored basic health and wellness items in an easy to access place, such as Advil, TUMS and some bandaids in the glove box.

Having everything well organized and ready to go made our travelling so much smoother and brought me such peace of mind, especially when it came to helping our daughter easily access her own things. This step alone massively mitigated my own stress around travelling.

03. Plan your travels around reasonable expectations and limits.

Be really realistic in how much driving your child can tolerate. While Curt and I could do a nine hour car day, that would be way too much for our daughter. What that meant is that we planned our road trip around how much time she could reasonably tolerate being in the car and then arranged stops based on that. We spent a few different days in the car, but we never travelled more than 5.5 hours in one day and tried not to do long car days all together in a row.

For example, our primary destination was about 9 hours away from our home, so we drove for 5 hours on the first day, planned a hotel stop for that night, and then only did a 3 hour drive the next day to another destination activity before finishing the final hour. It’s tempting to just get to your destination, but planning shorter travel stints can actually be the fun in the adventure with your family.

04. Consider your child when you plan your stops.

We didn’t do an exciting activity every single travel day, but I did try to take into consideration something - anything - that our daughter could look forward to after travelling that day. For example, I made sure that I picked hotels that had a pool so she could look forward to swimming once we reached our destination for the day. You may also consider looking up local playgrounds, parks, or splash pads so your kiddo can burn off some pent up energy after driving in the car for a long time.

Some of our stops included more extensive activities that were motivating and fun for a three year old, such as a visit to the Hershey Chocolate Factory as we passed through Pennsylvania. These activities were obviously more involved, so we only planned a couple of them. Little children realistically need down days and rest too, so not every travel day needs one of these big events. Considering your child when you plan your stops could be as simple as letting them choose the restaurant you all eat at for dinner or getting ice cream.

05. Keep your expectations low (and let yourself be pleasantly surprised!)

Finally, one of the best tips I have is to simply expect that it will be disastrous and then let yourself be pleasantly surprised when it isn’t. There will definitely be stressful and difficult moments in the journey, but I can assure you that it will go a lot better than you expect it will. Kids love adventure and adapt surprisingly well to different circumstances. Remember that this isn’t an average week of you going through your family routine - it’s special, fun, and exciting, and your kids will likely be a lot more tolerant of some unpleasantries because of that.

As a final thought, I figured I would share a round up of some of the small toys and activities I prepared for our daughter before we left. These things were all used and helped make long stretches of travel a little more bearable for all of us. Our daughter did great on our trip and I’m so glad I made the effort to pull these ideas together. I’m sure that many of them would work well for plane travel too.

01 Mess-Free Colouring Book // These colouring books are genius! The ink is invisible until it hits the paper, so you save yourself from a lot of unnecessary messes. I brought along the blank colouring book and we made a game of it, making suggestions for my daughter to draw. You can also get them as colouring sheets if your child prefers to simply colour.
02 Playdoh // Less is more when it comes to playdoh in the car. I brought along two different colours and only a small handful of tools to keep things simple. We especially loved having this in the car for when we went to restaurants - it makes a great time passer as you wait for your meals to be served.
03 Kid’s Digital Camera // We gifted this to Mabel before we left for our trip and it was a hit! Not only could she capture her own photo memories, but it also comes with a few games on it too. I’d recommend turning off the volume though, because the shutter sound can get a little bit annoying when your toddler snaps photo after photo of the back of your head.
04 iPad or Tablet // This is obvious, but one of the best pieces of advice that someone gave me before our travels was to allow guilt-free screen time. We kept ours charged up and pre-downloaded a handful of shows and movies from Netflix before leaving. Surprisingly, our daughter used it a lot less than I expected, but it definitely was a lifesaver on some of the longer jaunts of our travels.
05 Seat Organizer // This two-pack of seat organizers clip to the back of the driver and passenger seat and help keep all the car activities organized for kids. It has a pocket to hold the iPad, as well as numerous pockets for water bottles, small toys, and other activities. I filled ours with my daughter’s car activities and liked how she was able to see what her options were. We got very few “I’m bored!” complaints and instead found that she would regularly ask us if she could do this or that activity now. I definitely think it was because she was able to see what her options were.
06 Water WOW! Colouring Book // Kind of like the mess-free colouring book, these activity pads only require water. I like how compact they are, making them great for car travels and using in restaurants.
07 Kid’s Bluetooth Headphones // I ordered these last minute and I am so glad I did. They are specifically designed for kids and connect to devices via bluetooth, which definitely saved our sanity while our daughter watched the iPad in the car. They also did a really good job at cancelling out the noise.
08 Calico Critters // My daughter loves these so we brought some along to play with in the car. Generally, I’d just say that any small toys are a good idea to include. With that being said, I’d only recommend bringing a few and keeping tabs on them so they don’t get lost in the shuffle.
09 Pocket Etch A Sketch // My mother-in-law gave this to our daughter for Christmas last year so I just stuffed it in one of the seat organizer pockets just in case. I’m glad I did because it ended up being a hit! It’s another great mess-free drawing option and made for some fun games where we would all challenge each other to draw different things.
10 Lap Desk // This is a little bit bulky with a carseat, but it was really handy to have a hard surface for my daughter to draw or play with playdoh on. I also love that it has a storage compartment so we could keep all the colouring activities and markers together in an easy to access place.

I hope you can find some use with these tips and activity ideas. I’m so grateful that I took the time to do a little bit of research and prepare for our road trip. If you’re interested, you can read a little bit more about what our trip entailed here and feel free to share your own best road-tripping-with-kiddo tips in the comments below. Happy travelling!

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